Tak-Ma-Doon Road

Had to make a delivery in Cumbernauld today, so we took the opportunity to travel over the wonderful Tak-Ma-Doon Road towards Stirling, giving ourselves heart failure in the process.

The drive is pretty spectacular, both for the gradient and the scenery, although the views were kind of muggy. We’d definitely come back up on a clear day.

Tak-Ma-Doon Road is such an evocative name, I’ve wondered for ages what it’s history is. Did it just come into existence gradually over time, or was it made for a specific purpose? I’ve certainly heard passing mention of it being a drove road, although proof has been somewhat lacking.

However, I’ve just noticed that Heritage Paths Scotland website have posted detais of the Doups Drove Road that links to Tak-Ma-Doon Road, and also makes the blindingly obvious point (which I’d missed) that it’s a route to Falkirk for the Tryst.

There was also a little paved ford across the road, but a bit damaged so that we nearly got stuck.

The road was energetically pushing and pulling us back and forth over the Carron, showing us ruined houses, stone bridges and intriguing lumps and bumps. Loads to come back and have a look at.

As we passed through Fankerton, Mr Jenn spotted a large house on the right hand side of the road, sitting alone in the middle of a building site. It was a gorgeous building – reminded me a wee bit of an old railway hotel – so why was it standing all by itself?

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9 Comments:

First of all the house in Fankerton,
This would have been the mill owner’s house.
There was a paper mill for over 200 years in fankerton and it was recently shut down and all the buildings demolished leaving only the house.
back to the tak ma doon road
once it starts to climb (past the golf course) the road starts to twist passing brockiside cottage on the left and then Berry Hill farm on the right.
A hairpin bend follows and then a humpback bridge, climbing again one can see to the right an old light pill box – to make the germand drop their bombs here instead of over the hill in clydebank- along straight with a blind summit is followed by the car park in the sky – overlooking the kelvin valley one can see the rail brige over the forth and beyond.
levelling out and then droppping with the Tam Tin trig point to the left you can see the Waallace monument and the welcoming site otf the Ale house at the bottom.
Over the ford and past the fauklin reservoir one comes to the old droving road, to the right is an ancient arched bridge – only used by the farmer- which then leads on to the old droving road, to the left is the droving road going towards killearn and the last houses on this side of the river carron – Bent End – an old bothy and Slafarquhar originally built as a tenated farm (google it)
Then you are over another ancient very narrow bridge and passing the old holiday huts on the right and the ruins of the old post office this is where they crossed thr river – crossford the carronbridge hotel maeks the end of your journey
This is where you see the mounds which have been there since the ice age,
as the ice cut the shape of the valley the glaciers left behind piles of debris – ie moraine.

The tak ma doon road starts off by skirting the culziun park which contains culzium house and a wonderful daffodil area
Incidentally it was only tarmaced in the 1940s!
Hugh Mcpherson of berryhill farm built his first house in 1926. he used to sit on the humpback bridge and tell me stories of how he listened to the single engine jumker bombers flying home after a bombing raid.
He was the unofficial roadsman.
He told me of the occupier of slafarquhar who every wenesday would use the road to go and get groceries and have a wee refreshment. Luckily the horse knew it’s way home as he slept it off in the back of the cart!
One can only imagine how many hundreds of years there has been a track there. The Carron Valley has certainly been inhabited for 2000 years. Slafarquhar itself can be traced back to 1604. It stands to reason that the drovers cut their way thro and made paths?

Hi Steve, I notice that you indicate that Hugh McPherson built the first Berryhill farm house, but I remember that in the early 60’s it was two brothers Hugh and John Jarvie that were there at that time, I think perhaps only one of them was married and they had a son. I always assumed that they had been there for many years previously.

There was a road running across the hills to the Carron valley.It crosses the Tak Ma Doon Road and heads towards the summit of Tomtain.This was the Chapman’s road.A lot of it is now submerged below the Carron Reservoir and obscured by forestry.There are the graves of two Chapmen at the summit of Tomtain.One was hanged for murdering the other.They were both buried beside each other.

Used to live in the Doups many years ago before there was proper road access to it. My dad used to get a ton of coal left at the summit of the tak-ma doon road and carried one bag across the moor to the Doups each night as he came home from work, that was after walking from Kilsyth. Not one bag was stolen either, it was a much tougher life then even though as kids we did not appreciate it. I have many good memories of exploring the area around The Doups, Craigdoufie, Tapitknow and the Lins. and of the underground stream you could hear rumbling below ground, After nearly 60 years away I still think about it often.